marko

Absolutely, a great race track might not get more fans through the gate but a bad one will see you struggle to keep what you have. A promoters greatest asset isnt the riders or the stadium, its the track itself, your whole business is about what happens on that oval, get that wrong and your toast, sooner or later.

You have to strike a balance between getting carried away and actually looking to hurt another rider, the younger the rider the more chance they will try moves older riders will not risk. I think to an extent, because we have such a lack of young riders now, fans have forgotten how back in the day there were tons or riders who were a bit harem scarem, but thinking about it, it wasnt just the young riders. Think back when we had the likes of Kelvin Mullarkey, Jamie Habbin, Scott Smith, Rob Tilbury, Jan Pedersen, Rob Grant, Richard Green etc etc a lot of hard riders often on the verge of being over the top. Also, I would have a Cooper Rushden in my team any day over a Troy Batchelor.

And a 28 day ban would also mean missing every Poole match for the next month?

They said that about Arena Essex and eight years later the site remains untouched, for sure it will take an enormous amount of ground work if they are to build anything on it.

To the tune of 10cc's Wall Street Do the blue groove shuffle da da da Let your throttle hand hustle da da da You better make the start brother da da da You'll never pass another

Didn’t see the meeting but it’s just another classic story of not enough shale down or water, if a blue groove is evident it’s not because of a lack of water, it’s a lack of shale. If you water slick surface it can become dangerous, so dirt has to be down to soak up the water and most tracks have dirt out wide but it’s dry so you might as well be racing on talc powder, it won’t give you any grip let alone enough to make up for going to longer way around. I don’t think the riders are exempt from blame as Steve Lawson said on BSN most riders cry when he suggests putting water down. When this dry spell ends, I predict weeks and weeks off rain offs because riders just won’t want to race after becoming so used to riding on bone dry tracks.

Arena Essex had riders like Robert Ledwith, Tommy Palmer, Nick Floyd, Shaun Nicholls (related) Chris Young and Russell Etherington. And when I was a postman in Chelmsford I briefly was delivering to a junior rider from Peterborough who always looked like a fish out of water around the tight confines of Arena Essex, his name was Darren Tupper.

Ben Howe, Shaun Tacey, Sav Clouting and Lawrence Hare was probably the best junior team any club has ever had, they were untouchable.

The agreement to be fair was more aimed at the National League.

If we still ran junior teams the old rule of promote a junior if both sides were using R\R could be utilised. Also the issue isn’t so much about the amount of guests but the cause of why there is riders missing.

Good news about Tate, I don't agree about a ban for Morris, unlike some who just ride, Nick actually tries to race, that's why its called a "race" not a "ride" Ps I really like the look of the Workington track and how wide it is, when a rider gets it wrong and has to try and save it they have a bit of leeway, when i think it was Pedersen who lifted and managed to save it bar the front wheel catching the fence and throwing him over the handlebars, at some tracks mentioning no names, he would have been buried in the fence and possibly hurt.

Nasty looking fall for Tate, hope its not as bad as it looked to his shoulder area. Trouble is, the track being what it was, the only option was the inside line and Nick went in too quickly, its going to happen when riders are all chasing the same line, credit to Steve for trying to get water on it but it was just too dry from the start.

British Speedway is just a circus, I look at the GB speedway site every day to check out results and almost every day its the same, oh where is so and so, why wasnt so and so riding, they were fit and riding the previous day etc etc

If people wont go and i dont blame them because the product is sh*t, then more tracks will close, but all we hear is "crap speedway is better than no speedway at all" it isnt though is it? its just prolonging the agony.

This is British League top division match and including this reply, only five have commented on it, shocking! Add to that I read in this weeks star that Sheffield sent out 10000 free tickets to kids and only 300 turned up, I think Sheffield is finished.

Thank gawd for Tobias otherwise it would have been even more boring, im getting totally cheesed off with just about every track thinking that you don't need to water a track once heat one has finished. Once again another meeting where those who bother to attend go home covered in dust, im just glad this is a streaming service and not on cable tv because it would not generate more support, exactly the opposite. All too often racing is processional with dust flying everywhere, that will have new fans coming in there droves NOT

Gaters paradise, Morris look like he skated over that final bend, nothing to hold him up.

They are using R/R but wanted a guest, I don’t think you should be allowed a guests for second strings or reserves.

Even watching on catch up I was close to giving up after the first lot of races, but I forwarded a few heats and the racing got better at times, but like most tracks, dry and dusty, very little extra grip if you went out to the fence. Not expecting any different from tonight's BSN offering at Leicester, its all too predictable.

Justin ended up becoming infamous for his engine failures and I don’t mean giving up and pulling onto the centre green like so many riders do now, these were genuine and led of course to people wondering what wasn’t he doing to take care of his equipment such was it so unreliable.

There is a long list of riders who people thought might break through but ultimately never did, in recent times you have had riders like Zack W who still does grass and long track, Ashton B who has also gone to other two wheeled disciplines. Its easy to look back through rose tinted glasses, but I miss the days when you had a junior meeting after the main 4 vs 4 over 6 heats.

Being paired with Tilbury was never easy for any rider, I seem to recall he was steady enough but just not that fast.

Never any issues with Richard when he was with us at Lakeside and I think it helped that he seemed to have a very good working relationship with Cookie, extremely well liked by the fans and won the last ever race at the arena.

Not just Ipswich I would say, the sport is in a mess and the loss of any one team would have a serious effect on the others being able to run a proper model. Your promoter talks a lot of sense, but so did Stuart Douglas when he brought Arena Essex and none of the other promoters would listen to him either because he was new and they don't the idea of change, even when things are in the gutter.

Dust from the get go and they wont put any water on it, newbies wont come more than once if they go home covered in dust and as for the music, clearly the tie up with Poland has taught them nothing about presentation. Roll on September, might actually get some good meetings once tracks are not dry as a bone.